On Saturday, April 22, 2000, Mr. Paul Kagame, the single most strongest
man in Rwanda became the fifth president of Rwanda since the Belgian
colonization ended. He replaced Mr Pasteur Bizimungu, mostly considered
a puppet by analysts of Rwandan politics. The real power behind Mr.
Bizimungu
was Paul Kagame. The power takeover culminated a long process started by
Mr.
Kagame, from the Ugandan civil war in early 1980s.
As expected, the power takeover by Mr. Kagame, has created a strong reaction from the Armee de Liberation du Rwanda (ALIR), which has been battling the Rwandan Patriotic Front Government.
"Before, the real power was hidden under the rug. The rug being the so-called Government of National Unity. Now, it has come out. It turns out that Kagame is responsible for massacres, deportation, assassinations. He is a criminal. Rwanda is now led by clique of criminals. Is there any more choice left to the Rwandan people?" threatened the ALIR military operations commander in the region.
More and more young people are joining the ALIR in droves. Last week, an AfroAmerica Network correspondent in Rwanda attended a drill of more than two hundred new recruits, who freshly joined the armed opposition. These mostly malnourished young Rwandans include both Hutus and Tutsis. Both group are citing the suffering, hunger, and repression going on in Rwanda. "We always thought that Kagame had liberated us and put an end to the massacres of Tutsis, but now we are learning that he is one of the instigators of these massacres", complained a young Tutsi recruit, visibly in a fair nutritional condition.
This happens as overwhelming testimonies point to the responsibility of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. These testimonies allege that Mr. Paul Kagame is directly the responsible for the assassinations of former presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. According to an article published in a major Canadian newspaper, the National Post, three informants from the current Rwandan Patriotic Front government claimed they had been part of a secret commando-operation team, which had shot down the plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyalimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira along with their staff.
A recent, more damaging testimony from Jean Peirre Mugabe, an eye witness to the assassinations, himself a former Rwandan Patriotic Army officer and journalist, directly incriminates General Paul Kagame, as the person who ordered the assassinations of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, in order to have total monopole of power.
To appease growing discontent among Rwandans, all ethnic groups confounded, the new president of Rwanda may try dramatic measures, some experts believe. Already, there are rumors of liberating tens of prisoners, especially those without any real threat to the Rwandan Patriotic Front supremacy.
International media, human rights organizations, and independent agencies estimate that more than 200,000 people, from the Hutu ethnic majority, are imprisoned in Rwanda, most of them without trial or charges.
Rwandan prisons have arguably become the most crowded, most dangerous, and most inhumane prisons in the World. Hundreds of thousands of people are held in truck containers, disused factories, old bathrooms, wet or leaking dungeons, or anywhere things can be confined.
Crowded cells serve as toilets, sleeping, and living rooms. Prisoners are regularly tortured. Thousands have lost limbs, developed skin diseases, or caught recurrent or terminal illnesses.
Whatever the measures Paul Kagame may take, most Rwandans seem to have already condemned the Rwandan Patiotic Front government and its leader, Paul Kagame.
@AfroAmerica Network, May 6, 2000.
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